Senior Manager - Principal Software Engineer

Grade:

B

Job Title:

Principal Software Engineer

Team:

Technology & Solutions

Locations:

UK

Capability:

Audit

Service line:

Audit Central

Contract type:

Permanent

Summary of role purpose:

The Principal Software Engineer will be accountable for shaping the technical direction for a portfolio of products and services within Technology & Solutions. This role will leverage deep engineering expertise, experience in managing engineering teams, and desire to learn, grow, and innovate. Successful candidate will be accountable for delivery of high-quality, enterprise-grade software products, embedding the use of AI across the software delivery lifecycle, and developing a culture of learning and excellence amongst the team.

Responsibilities

Technical Accountability & Engineering Excellence:

• Provide accountability and engineering direction for a portfolio of products and delivery teams
• Lead by example through hands-on technical contribution and solving critical technical challenges
• Establish, evolve, and enforce engineering standards, coding practices, quality gates, and governance frameworks that enable safe, scalable, and effective AI-native software delivery
• Champion engineering excellence across the full software delivery lifecycle, driving secure-by-design development, comprehensive observability, modern testing practices, resilient deployment strategies, and operational excellence at scale
• Ensure solutions are designed and delivered to enterprise-grade standards, embedding security, performance, resilience, scalability, and operational readiness from inception through to production
• Represent engineering in portfolio intake and triage discussions
• Collaborate with solution architects to ensure solutions align with broader architectural patterns and standards

AI-Native Engineering & Process Embedding:

• Champion and scale AI-native, specification-driven development practices across engineering teams
• Establish and embed the use of standards, frameworks and tooling for AI-augmented development across SDLC (e.g. define standards for prompt engineering, AI code review practices, and human-in-the-loop workflows)
• Champion the adoption of GitHub Copilot, Claude Code and other approved AI coding assistants as core development tools
• Drive technical innovation through proof-of-concepts and evaluating emerging AI engineering tools and platforms
• Demonstrate measurable improvements in delivery velocity, quality, or efficiency through AI adoption based on production use cases

Team Management:

• Coach and develop engineering teams, fostering a culture of excellence, learning, and AI adoption
• Foster collaboration across teams, breaking down silos and promoting knowledge sharing

Experience and knowledge requirements

Required:

• Software engineering experience with demonstrable progression to senior technical roles
• Extensive full-stack development expertise including backend (.NET Core, C#) and frontend (Angular or React, TypeScript, JavaScript)
• Proven experience in delivering enterprise-scale cloud solutions on Microsoft Azure
• Strong track record in managing and coaching engineering teams 
• Experience with AI-native software delivery and specification-driven development, including the use of AI-assisted engineering tools, automated quality assurance, modern testing practices, and highly automated CI/CD workflows within enterprise-scale environments
• Experience in microservices architecture, distributed systems, and RESTful API development and integration
• Experience in Git, GitHub, and modern CI/CD practices including automated testing and deployment pipelines
• Hands-on experience with Agile software development methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) and DevOps practices
• Strong database design, data modelling, and development expertise across relational (SQL Server, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL platforms such as Azure CosmosDB
• Demonstrated ability to balance technical execution with people management and product accountability
• Proven problem-solving skills and analytical thinking with ability to tackle complex technical challenges
• Strong decision-making capabilities with ability to evaluate trade-offs and make pragmatic choices under pressure

Desirable:

• Familiarity with agentic AI frameworks and architectures (e.g. Microsoft Agent Framework and/or equivalent frameworks in other languages)
• Experience architecting for scalability, performance, security, and operational excellence
• Experience with Databricks, data engineering, or analytics platforms
• Familiarity with Node.js, and Typescript backend development
• Knowledge of modern frontend build tools, CSS frameworks, and responsive design principles
• Background in professional services, consulting, or client-facing technical delivery
• Contribution to open-source projects or active participation in engineering communities
• Relevant associate or expert-level certifications in Microsoft Azure, Databricks, modern JavaScript frameworks or full-stack development

KPMG overview:

KPMG in the UK is part of a global network of firms that offer Audit, Legal, Tax and Advisory services. Through the talent of over 16,000 colleagues, we bring our creativity, insight and experience to solve our clients’ and communities’ biggest problems. We’ve been doing this for more than 150 years.

We aim to be universally recognised as a place for great people to do their best work. A firm known for our collaborative and inclusive culture, using technology to empower and equip our people to deliver outstanding work with real flexibility – through inspiring workspaces, innovative ways to collaborate and hybrid ways of working.

With offices across the UK, we work with everyone from small start-ups and individuals to major multinationals, in virtually every industry imaginable. Our work is often complex, yet our mission is simple: To support the UK in a connected world. It guides everything we do, underpinned by our values: Courage, Integrity, Excellence, Together and For Better.

KPMG are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunity employer and we seek to attract and retain the best people from the widest possible talent pool.

As a member of the Business Disability Forum we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the Recruitment Process.

We pride ourselves on being a place wh